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February 27, 2012

Slouchy Beanie mass production - at least that's what if felt like in December 2010. It was bad ass cold outside and I was in need of something that kept my head and especially my ears warm. I finally ended up experimenting with the pattern of the small beret. The result was a simple two-coloured slouchy beanie.
My sister saw it and wanted to have one. My mum saw it and she wanted to have one as well. So I ended up crocheting three of them....

February 20, 2012

Remember the self-made envolopes I blogged about here? Well, someone suggested I put up a tutorial on how to make them so here we go :)

Step 1: The Stencils
The first thing you need and probably therefore the first thing you have to work on are your stencils. I made mine using ruler, triangle and some scratch paper*. The easier way would be to simple use another envelople.
I'm talking about stancils (plural) because the envelopes I made required two - one for the envelope itself and another one for the inlay:

If you like, you can also make a stencil for an address field. Mine is a simple rectangle - 7cm x 4 cm - with round edges. I myself don't use a stencil for that as it can be easily drawn with a triangle.

Step 2: The Material
Next, you have to choose the material you want your envelopes to be made of. There are various options. You can for example print out patterns or use old newspapers, wrapping material or paper bags** like I did. Here are my ideas:

When you decided to print out something you're pretty much done at this point with step 2 of this tutorial.
When you went for other material, like the paper bags or the newspapers you now have to prepare it. Preperation in this context means cutting things in shape an maybe also ironing them:

Step 3: Draw and Cut
Now we're at the point where I normally get the feeling that I need more hands than I actually have.
Arrange the stencil on the inside of the material you chose and prepared in step 2 and transfer the different shapes onto it with a pencil. Afterwards, cut them out.

You should then also raze out all traces of pencil that are left on your future envelope, inlay and address field.

Step 4: Fold and Glue
After everything is cut out, you can begin to fold the envelope. Therefor, slightly perforate the paper with the help of a needle and a ruler. Afterwards, the folding will be much easier and the folded edges will look nicer.

Then glue the inlay into the envelope.

After that glue the envelope together. Therefore put some glue on those two edges.

At the end, add the address field.

Now to secure everything I recommend putting your envelope under a heavy book for a little while.

Done :)

- Uta -

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* Whenever you make stencils I highly recommend using scratch paper or a piece of newspaper, it's more eco-friendly.
** Not only will mother earth be thankful when you reuse 'old stuff', it will also make your envelopes truly unique.

February 19, 2012

Guess I'm not the only person having problems with the English crocheting terminology from time to time. It took me a while to figure out that there's actually a difference between the British and the American one. For those of you having problems with this as well...

February 14, 2012

I'm a sucker for stationary always looking for nice letter paper and evelopes. Unfortunately, it's hard to find stationary I really like. Therefore I started to create my own. I began by looking up different patterns and picutres on the internet that I later printed out. Those turned out like this for example:

But as I became more and more aware of the necessity to live a bit more eco-friendly I had a look at things I had lyning around my appartment, things I could maybe reuse or recycle. And I instantly had to think of all the paper bags you get for example at Starbucks or at TeeGschwendner. I love to buy things at those shops so I have a couple of them.

Well, I then started to craft my first Starbucks envelopes:

And those are the ones made out of TeeGschwendner bags and After Eight paper:

February 7, 2012

As the weather switched to bad-ass cold lately I spent a lot of time with a cosy blanket, hot tea and a crochet hook on my couch. Result: I managed to finish four more rounds of my wool-eater blanket. That makes a total of 20; my goal is 26 so far.

February 4, 2012

Okay, I know, it's still winter, there's snow and it's darn cold outside (-16°C aren't exactly fun). Nevertheless, I needed new decoration for my windows and as I'm not really a fan of winter I decided to already put up some spring inspired things. Therefore, I bought some wire butterflies and flowers as well as some nice ribbons et voilà:

So there's one for the office, one for the kitchen and I made another one (not pictured) for the little hall.